


At the Corner of Athens and Sparta

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alexios is just a disaster, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, Bisexuality, Christmas Fluff, College, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Humor, Kassandra is a bisexual disaster, M/M, Multi, One Big Happy Family, Open Relationships, Polyamory, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 07:00:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: Greektown's heart is where Athens Street and Sparta Avenue intersect. Not unlike their historical namesakes, the residents on these streets seem to have a rivalry with one another, although rather than killing each other, they play intense games of pool or foosball at the Adrestia (loser has to buy winner a plate of hot wings).The Lakonia Diner sits on Sparta Avenue, and the Nikolaidis family have been running it as long as Greektown's been a thing. When an entertainment business buys up the abandoned grocery store and apartment complex across the street with the intent to turn it into a massive club called Kosmos, Kassandra and Alexios not only have to deal with the changes it brings to the neighborhood, but their own family ridiculousness and their personal lives, which are already weird enough.





	At the Corner of Athens and Sparta

**Author's Note:**

> [clicks castanets] i have no idea what i'm dooooing. mostly this is a reprieve to nanowrimo stresssss. i hope you guys enjoy iiiiiit. 
> 
> also greektown is wherever you want it to be. i based it off a few greek neighborhoods i've been in, but there's no concrete city where this is based. 
> 
> (and the pairings list probs looks wacky. it'll make sense, i promise.)

It starts in April, when Myrrine stands at the register of the Lakonia Diner and first spots a dayglo-yellow construction jacket across the street. The woman has eyes like a hawk, and the contractor wearing the jacket isn’t exactly making himself inconspicuous. She stares _hard,_ and if the man feels boreholes being burnt into his head through his ridiculous plastic hard hat, then she’s doing her job correctly.  
  
He stands in front of what was the Korinth Heights Grocery Store and Cafe, which went under two and a half years prior (two years, seven months, and a week to the day, actually; she’s been counting). Myrrine watches as he makes notes on a clipboard, shuffles over to the corner closest to the intersection, taps the brickwork experimentally, looks at his fingers, and makes another note. By the time Alexios impales another receipt on the spindle next to the worn money damper, Myrrine’s blood pressure is at record heights, and her son can tell.  
  
“Mom. Hey. _Heyyy_ ,” he drawls, waving his hand in front of her face. “I need another to-go box and there aren’t any left by the cooler.”  
  
“Back shelf, two down,” she says without looking away.  
  
He sighs and scoots around her, crouching down to fuss with a stack of styrofoam containers. “What are you looking at?” he asks, more to the boxes than her.  
  
“I think someone’s buying the grocery store.”  
  
He stands up, six unfolded containers in hand, and looks over the top of her head at the contractor, now talking on his phone and waving emphatically at the boarded up windows. “Huh,” is all Alexios says.  
  
“If it’s another burger chain—”  
  
“It’s _not_ , mamá,” Alexios says, rolling his eyes and backing out of the cramped space.  
  
“Or a bar.”  
  
“Mom.”  
  
“Or liquor store. God knows we don’t need another one of _those_.”  
  
“ _Mom_ , it’s fine. It’s probably just the city zoning people. There’s still a for sale sign up, see?” He gestures with the boxes to the faded sign pasted to the only unboarded window. The horrifically sunbleached photograph of a blond politician-type Remax agent gazes serenely back at them with a crescent moon of bleached white teeth, as he’s done for two years, seven months, and a week.  
  
Myrrine clearly isn’t convinced, but Alexios goes back to the table regardless, pausing only to drop the other five boxes in an empty tray near the beer cooler. He hands the box to one of a group of three young ladies, all clearly not natives of Greektown, who grin and giggle when he comes within two feet of them and thank him like he’s just given them all a collective Academy Award. They act like they’re tipsy, and Alexios can’t help but smile when one woman stands up, stumbles, and is berated with a fond, “Oh my _gawd,_ Carrie. You’re _so_ drunk!”  
  
They exit in a laughing mass, just as Kassandra walks in, black apron draped over one arm, backpack over the opposite shoulder.  
  
“Oh, brunch day-drinking. That sounded fun,” she says, nodding back towards the receding group of ladies, more than likely making a beeline for the Attika Baking Company. Then, she turns the tight corner of the register counter and gives Myrrine a one-armed hug with a fond, “Morning, mamá.”  
  
Myrrine only _now_ looks away from the contractor, grinning up at her eldest before hugging her back.  
  
Alexios picks up the half-empty beer bottles, holding them by their necks between his index and middle fingers while wiping the moisture rings off the glass-topped table. “Morning, idiot,” he says brightly.  
  
“Good morning, shithead,” she returns with just as much energy, pulling away from Myrrine just in time to dodge what would have been a perfectly accurate smack to the back of the head.  
  
“ _Kassandra._ We have customers!”  
  
“We have Sokrates,” Kassandra corrects. “That doesn’t count.”  
  
Sokrates, one of the regulars, sits in the back corner of the room and peers up over the edge of his newspaper, brows lifted. “She’s right,” he says with a grin. “I don’t count.”  
  
Myrrine looks between all three of them, perfectly exasperated. Before she can go into a lecture about how to behave in front of customers (all _one_ of them), Alexios expertly diverts the conversation as he sets the bottles down on the edge of the cooler. “Mom’s freaking out about the grocery store,” he says.  
  
“I am not... freaking out,” Myrrine retorts. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks out the front window again, past the painted golden meanders bordering the top and bottom of the glass. The contractor is pacing slowly, talking animatedly on his phone. Once in awhile, he stops to point at the building as though the person on the other end of the conversation can magically see it. He gestures to the windows, to the front door hidden behind a solid slab of plywood, and then to the cornerstone (which reads _A.D. 1922_ on top, and _μ.Χ. 1922_ on the bottom). He taps the cornerstone a few times, and then throws his head back and laughs.  
  
Myrrine frowns, just as Kassandra and Alexios launch into a brand new argument on why the grocery store went under in the first place. As always, it dissolves into the two of them insulting each other in new and creative ways, and finally culminates in Kassandra putting her little brother in a headlock, dragging him over to the roasting and rotating vertical rack of lamb at the back, and getting him close enough to the grill that he finally begs for mercy when she threatens to make gyros out of his face.  
  
It starts at that moment, Myrrine realizes later. At the time, she just says, “Don’t get your brother’s hair in the lamb.”  
  
For about a month, it’s forgotten.  
  
\- - -  
  
Kassandra thinks it starts in early June, just before school lets out and the diner is still relatively light on customers during the late night shift. Most people go to the Adrestia for after-work drinks, and then come into the Lakonia Diner for hangover food in the morning. From around nine until midnight, Kassandra doesn’t have to do too much, and the diner can run itself between one cook and two waiters.  
  
As it stands, it’s her and Alexios that night, with Nikolaos filling in for a sick cook, humming some old rebetika song loud enough for the two of them to hear.  
  
So far, the only customers are a group of college kids getting their pre-game drinks, Aristophanes and his ever-present notebook covered in coffee rings, and a middle-aged man with graying hair and a cockeyed smile, who seems to enjoy their pita with all the voracity of a Hoover. All in all, it’s a quiet night, with the TV monitors muted, and Nikolaos’ choice of music on the speakers. Unfortunately, it’s more rebetika.  
  
“You know, I bet it’s great if you’re visiting Greektown,” Kassandra complains, resting one elbow on the counter while she makes little crosshatch patterns on the back of her notepad. “Like, _ohhh_ it’s an _authentic_ Greek experience!”  
  
Alexios sits at one of the empty tables, fiddling with his phone for lack of anything else to do. He sighs, setting it off to the side and resting his chin on his palm. “Authentic. Sure,” he says.  
  
“It’s not as great when you have to hear it every day.”  
  
The song changes to yet another warbling love song, sounding like the poor man is standing on the edge of some sun-bleached cliff, wailing his heart out to the entirety of the Aegean. The two of them groan. Nikolaos sings along, either unaware or completely ignoring that his kids are fully prepared to stage a musical coup.  
  
“It’s _my_ Spotify account,” Kassandra adds, although that doesn’t change anything. The song still plays, the singer still cries about his lost love in the arms of another man, and one of the college kids poorly mimics him to the delight of all his friends.  
  
At that moment, she turns her head to look out at the empty Sparta street, bathed in orange vapor light, with the same motorcycle, beat up Chevy Suburban, and her own red Jeep Wrangler hugging the limited curb space. She sees the same rusted blue dome of the mailbox on the corner, and the flecked yellow fire hydrant, and the—  
  
The lights on in the grocery store.  
  
Kassandra perks up, squinting to see the slivers of white fluorescent light around the plywood barriers. Vaguely, she can see someone moving around, and about a half minute later, one of the windows on the second floor fills with light. It’s unboarded, so Kassandra can see light cast on the ceiling. There’s a silhouette of someone in a hard hat, and immediately, Kassandra’s mind goes right back to April, when Myrrine first complained that someone had bought the place.  
  
“Alexios?”  
  
“Mmm,” Alexios says, more to his phone than to her.  
  
“I think mom was right.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
She watches the person in the window disappear, and then reappear, going through the exact motions of using a tape measurer on the frame. “I think someone bought the place across the street.”  
  
Alexios sighs through his nose and turns around in his chair. He watches for a moment before shrugging and turning back to what he was doing. “Looks like they’re just doing something with the apartments,” he replies.  
  
Kassandra’s learned to trust her gut over the years, as it’s yet to lead her wrong on much (except maybe choosing the winning lotto numbers), and right then, she listens to it. Something tells her that there’s more going on across the street than just a renovation. Nearly every building in Greektown needs to be renovated to some degree, even their own. Hell, Kassandra’s own apartment above the Adrestia has water leaks galore and strange creaking sounds at all hours of the night.  
  
She makes a low noise of protest, but at that moment, the man with the pita craving gets up with his bill and brings it to the register. Kassandra goes into waitress mode, smiling and asking him how everything was, if there was anything else he needs, here’s his total, thank you so much. She hands him his change, thanks him for putting approximately forty cents into the tip jar, and is ready to go back to staring at the building until something more interesting happens.  
  
Then, the man smiles at her. “I hear they’ve got big plans for that place,” he says, gesturing across the street.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Mhmm. Some entertainment company bought it up a few months ago. Something like a casino, or... I dunno.”  
  
“That’s... Huh,” is all Kassandra can say. Then she says, “Thanks for telling me.”  
  
He nods and slips another ten dollars into the tip jar before shouldering his way out the door, leaving with the soft tinkling of the bell mounted on the jamb. Alexios pockets his phone and gets up to clean off the man’s table before he lets out a surprised ‘ohh!’. He quickly clears the table, bringing the dishes back to the kitchen, wipes it down, and then quickly makes his way back to the register where he slaps a fifty dollar bill on the counter.  
  
The man left a fifty dollar tip, plus another ten in the jar.  
  
“ _What?_ ” is all Alexios can say, slapping the bill like Kassandra somehow hasn’t seen it yet.  
  
Kassandra is certain it starts there, with a strange man knowing about the building and leaving sixty dollars and forty cents in tips, and the people moving around in the apartments. She says as much to Alexios, who is far too moonstruck with having money to go into his new laptop fund.  
  
She trusts her gut, but after another customer comes in and orders saganaki, it’s forgotten again, somewhere between setting cheese on fire and yelling, “ _Opa!_ ” while Alexios snorts in the background.  
  
\- - -  
  
Alexios, with his famous ‘mind like a steel trap’ as Nikolaos would phrase it, gets it only when construction’s actually begun, and mostly because his usual parking spot across the street is taken up by four huge orange striped barrels. A woman with a jackhammer mercilessly pecks at the curb (which Alexios considers _his_ , seeing as how it has a thick black stripe from _his_ Honda Odyssey’s tire coming into contact with it countless times). He watches in misery as the woman hacks off another black chunk of cement, and wonders how the hell he missed the signs.  
  
“I’m wondering, too,” Kassandra says, deftly pulling out four singles and two quarters from the register. She smiles and counts them out into an older woman’s palm, sing-songs a, “Have a great day!” before elbowing the register drawer shut. Then, her attention is back on her little brother. “They started this back in April, Alexios.”  
  
“I didn’t know that!”  
  
“Mom told us, and I said something in June. It’s _September._ ”  
  
Alexios grunts and turns away from the horrific sight of his beloved curb turning into gravel. He should be doing inventory, but his notebook now has half a chart done, and then a little sad face drawn in the margin.  
  
Kassandra keeps talking as she undoes her braid and redoes it, letting it trail over her shoulder. “Remember the guy that left us the huge tip? He said an entertainment company bought it up.”  
  
Alexios doesn’t remember him, but nods like he does.  
  
“Alkibiades says it’s supposed to be some huge nightclub,” she finishes, tying off her braid. “They’re already hiring on their website. I haven’t checked it out, though.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Why—” She looks at him like he’s just grown a couple extra heads like the Hydra mural on the next street. “I don’t know, because it feels like betrayal just thinking about it?”  
  
Alexios already has his phone out, typing the old Korinth Heights address into Google and thumbing through the results. There’s the map result, followed by a few short news stories about how the eighty year old business finally had to be sold and if it was a sign that the old Greektown was starting to fade. Finally, he sees the word ‘future development’ in a link and taps on it. “Kosmos Entertainment, LLC,” he reads. “They bought it back in February, I guess?”  
  
Kassandra looks like she’s about to say something, but a customer comes in and she goes into full happy waitress mode, greeting them and saying she’ll be right with them.  
  
Alexios keeps reading through the buyer information before he finally finds a link back to the company’s website. He opens it, and his screen is filled with black before the gilded, glowing head of Medusa phases onto his screen. It leads to a website featuring a short slideshow of some of their developments in the city, like a casino and a nightclub downtown. He thumbs through a few more pictures before tapping on a link reading _FUTURE_ in glowing gold pseudo-Greek type.  
  
And there, right on the header, is a view of the Korinth Heights building, just as plain as it is outside the Lakonia Diner window.  
  
_Kosmos, our new flagship nightclub, seeks to redefine what entertainment and pleasure mean,_ it reads. _Come experience four floors of dazzling light and sound, top of the line cuisine, and the best that the entertainment world has to offer. Your senses will be overwhelmed, and you may just find yourself never wanting to leave._  
  
Kassandra circles back around and pauses just long enough to look over her brother’s shoulder. “Is that it?” she asks just as he scrolls down to a series of blueprints. They look absolutely monstrous, and Alexios can’t imagine all of it fitting inside the building across the street.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“ _Christ,_ that thing looks ugly. Don’t show mom if you value her life and care about her blood pressure.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
Kassandra nods before grabbing an empty coffee cup and making her way to the suffering coffee machine.  
  
Good thing, since Alexios taps on the Careers link before turning his phone off and sliding it into his pocket just as a massive jury duty badge-clad group comes in.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


End file.
